Walmart to Offer Discount on Organic Foods

By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Apr 10, 6:18AM EDT · Published Apr 10, 4:41AM EDT

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The trend, which seems to have become permanent, among Americans to buy organic foods got a boost from Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (NYSE: WMT). The company announced that it would sell groceries from organic food firm Wild Oats that are 25% or more below the supplier’s previous levels. Wild Oats claims to be one of the organic food industry leaders. Walmart could use almost anything to improve its battered U.S. sales.

Wild Oats describes the missions of its company this way:

True to our founding mission, Wild Oats still believes that everyone has a right to great-tasting, high-quality products that are affordable and easy to find without having to make an extra trip to a specialty store.

Our promise is to create a wide range of these items for the natural and organics arena … so that you and your loved ones can enjoy better living, starting from the inside.

It is likely Wild Oats commitment to “affordable” products that made the company attractive to the world’s largest retailer.

Under the terms of the partnership, Walmart said:

[I]t will carry Wild Oats organic food items. Originally introduced in 1987, Wild Oats will relaunch at Walmart starting this month with a new, more affordable price point on quality products covering a broad variety of categories — from salsa and pasta sauce to quinoa and chicken broth. Customers will save 25 percent or more when comparing Wild Oats to national brand organic products.

Wild Oats, a trusted provider of organic groceries, will feature the following lines at Walmart:

Wild Oats Marketplace Organic, which adheres to USDA guidelines for organic certification and includes everything from canned vegetables (15 oz) at $.88 to a full range of spices such as paprika, curry powder and ground cinnamon (2 oz) starting at $2.48. Organic items represent nearly 90 percent of the Wild Oats offering.

Wild Oats Marketplace, which includes products with simple and real ingredients such as ready-to-prepare skillet meals (5.8 oz) at $1.50.

Wild Oats Marketplace Originals, offering new and uniquely formulated items, will be available later this year.

Walmart’s same-store sales in the United States, which is the source of about two-thirds of revenue, has been slipping and revenue has been flat. Walmart needs to find more lines of products to appeal to its traditional, price-conscious lower- and middle-class shoppers. The deal with Wild Oats is a step in that direction.

About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.